Solubility of amino acids, sugars, and proteins

Abstract

Abstract:The importance of biomolecules is well recognized nowadays, owing to their application in many industrial processes, particularly in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries.Amino acids, carbohydrates, and proteins are the three types of biomolecules considered in this review. Solubilities of several amino acids and sugars have been measured in water and, more recently, in mixed solvents, both with or without salts. Experimental data on partition of proteins in aqueous two-phase systems (ATPSs), with polymers or salts, have also been reported in the literature. The experimental techniques used are briefly discussed. Regarding modeling, the complexity of these solutions is very high. Sugars form strong hydrogen bonds with one another and with water or other solvents like alcohols. Liquid solutions with amino acids or proteins present not only short-range interaction forces, but also long-range forces, owing to the appearance of charged species. The capabilities of different molecular models and group-contribution-based methods are shown.

Ice nucleation by water-soluble macromolecules

“…If these molecules are fully dissolved in water, one can regard them as being in solution and not in suspension. Many proteins are soluble in water (e.g., Osborne, 1910;Macedo, 2005; Sect. S1.1), but single protein molecules are far larger than e.g., salt ions or low molecular weight saccharides.…”

Solubility and solvation thermodynamics of dl-nor-valine in aqueous solutions of NaCl and KCl

“…This type of studies may also help in understanding the solubility behavior and solvation chemistry of related biomolecules. For quite a long time, several studies on the solubilities of different amino acids have been carried out in water, in mixed solvents and in both with or without salts using several chemical and thermodynamic models under different experimental conditions [2][3][4][5][6][7]. It has been observed that experimental temperature [2,4], polarity of the solvents [8][9][10], ionic strength [3,11], acidity or alkalinity of the media [4,6,9,12], etc., affect the solubility of amino acids and hence the thermodynamics of solvation significantly.…”

Modeling solubilities of sugars in alcohols based on original experimental data

“…Solubility data for different sugars in water have been measured and published since the late years of the 19th century 12. Additionally, the solubility of common sugars (glucose, fructose, lactose, and sucrose) in methanol–water and ethanol–water mixtures is also available in the literature 13–17.…”